Nokiashop : Online store from Indiatimes and Nokia [#Fail]

In what could be termed as first of its kind – Nokia has partnered with Indiatimes shopping to bring consumers a direct manufacturer to consumer online store for selling mobile phones called NokiaShop.

But, apart from being a direct manufacturer shop, there seems to be nothing exciting about Nokia Shop. Infact, I doubt people will even buy anything from here. The biggest advantage of being a direct manufacturer shop is that it will have better prices, or at least schemes that will give consumers some price advantage.

But it looks like Nokia Shop does not offer anything of that sort – Infact, it is exactly the opposite – The prices listed on Nokia Shop are more expensive than other online stores. Nokia Lumia 800 is probably one of the most talked about phones from Nokia since very long time. Although Nokia Shop is promoting it aggressively on homepage, the pricing for same is Rs. 29,999/-, which is much higher than other Indian online stores.

I did little research to find pricing at other online stores and here are the findings:

Nokia Shop – Nokia Lumia 800 Pricing – Rs. 29,999/-

IndiaPlaza – Nokia Lumia 800 Pricing – Rs. 28,298/-

Infibeam – Nokia Lumia 800 Pricing – Rs. 29,899/-

Now, there are 2 scenarios possible of such pricing – either other online stores are grossly under-cutting the prices to gain new customers or Nokia Shop is just another gimmick to add something to add something to Indiatimes Shopping portfolio. If either Nokia or Indiatimes was serious, they surely would have looked at the pricing from competitors before putting up Nokia Shop.

When I first read the news, I thought Nokia shop will be equivalent to offline “Factory Retail Outlet”, where consumers would get some kind of price advantage. However, Nokia Shop is total disappointment!

What do you think?